Software Review of:
InoculateIT 
Personal Edition 

Computer Associates International, Inc. claims to be the leading business software company. There is no reason for me to dispute their claim. As witnessed by last year’s "Melissa" virus and the recent "ILoveYou" bug and all of it’s many variants, computer viruses are an ever-present nemesis to the casual Internet or computer user as well as to the expert user, business computer user and the computer professional. The amount of damage in downtime and lost earnings and potentially more importantly, lost data is significant if you are the one facing these problems. Protection against virus attacks should never be taken for granted, nor should you have the illusion that you or your system(s) are immune. One reason for this, in my mind, is that individuals who write viruses are becoming more clever and devious in their attempts to play their pranks on unsuspecting computer users. Another reason is that new virus programs are being written every day. Virus protection programs may be compared to the armor worn by knights in medieval times. Knights wearing armor were much less vulnerable to attack and had a better defense against any attack than those who had no armor. Take the widely agreed on advice: Protect yourself before a computer virus makes you wish you had. 

If you are using a computer and you don’t have an anti-virus program installed and running all the time, then you are being negligent. You say, "but I don’t know how to install it," well, there are excellent help files and technical support, and the updates for this program are free and can be done easily. You say, "but I don’t know how to use these kinds of programs," well, isn’t it about time you learned? Finally, you say, "but I can’t afford to pay for the program and then keep paying for the constant updates," well – guess what, the best thing of all, InoculateIT Personal Edition is absolutely FREE!!! That’s right, I said FREE, (as in costing you nada, zip, zero) for you to download and use on your own personal computer. There are some restrictions, however. In the licensing agreement that you agree to before downloading, you are permitted to use the program on only one machine and that machine is to be utilized for your own personal use. Virus protection for a business or network situation is available from the company but they do charge for those. After all, they are a business-oriented company. For more information about their other products, please visit their website. 

The installation process was quite simple and the program offers free Autodownload updates for the registered InoculateIT Personal Edition user. Installation and updating instructions are clearly stated on the Internet, at http://www.cai.com, so I will dispense with discussing them here. Once InoculateIT Personal Edition is installed, the company recommends updating your DAT or virus signature files at least weekly. I do recommend registering this product even if you are not in the habit of registering your software. Registration automatically subscribes you to the Virus Threat Notification System and the Update Notification Service. With these, you will be alerted when a virus outbreak occurs (remember Melissa, IloveYou, etc.?) and you will be informed when a new anti-virus update is available. 

Once it is installed correctly, you can have InoculateIT Personal Edition scan key system files at bootup and then run in the background, or you can run the full program directly from your Windows environment. It can detect viruses in memory, on files downloaded from the Internet or on other media (CD’s, floppy disks or hard drives). You should consider selecting the option to Enable File Monitor Real-Time Protection, which will allow InoculateIT Personal Edition to monitor as files are opened, closed, copied or run. This is a powerful program that will detect all known viruses, including boot sector, file and macro viruses. If you are in need of a virus protection program, this one comes highly recommended. You sure can’t beat the price or the free support that comes along with it!